On the 18th of July it was officially announced
that the Gold Coast Blaze would be withdrawing from the NBL competition. The club went into voluntary administration
earlier in the year and from the outset things didn’t look good and the Blaze was
facing an uphill battle. Everyone knows
all this information but how did the team get to this stage? What happened to the new kid on the block
that made them go belly up? Let us delve
deeper...
First of all the team was second last in attendance during
the 2011/12 season, only ahead of Melbourne*.
There should be a disclaimer on this statistic as The Cage only holds
3,500 people and averaged 3,234 which is pretty close to selling out on each
occasion (92.4%). Comparing that to The
Furnace, the team averaged only 3,495 attendants but had a maximum capacity of
a massive 5,269 (66.3%). They also had
two games the Brisbane Convention Centre, averaging a paltry 2,386 for a total
season average of only 3,337. This just
isn’t enough supporters attending games to sustain a basketball club and a
massive reason why the team has folded.
Stemming from this the team couldn’t cough up the mandatory
$1 million to be in the league before the deadline. Strangely enough the team argued that the NBL
should drop this mandatory figure to as low as $200,000 which is frankly
absurd. If the South Dragons dropped out
of the competition because they didn’t agree with the million dollar guarantee
and they had just won the championship with a decent support base what kind of
arrogant head office thought that they were exempt from the rule. Adding that they were losing money on the
back of low attendance records this situation is the exact reason why teams
need to have collateral assets and money so they don’t go into voluntary
administration. The team had said that
they “projected revenue lines from sponsors and other sources of over $1
million” but could not be verified at the deadline screams desperate to me.
A short note but what is up with Mark Worthington being on
three disbanded teams in the past five years or so? First he was on the Sydney Kings squad when
they went belly up for a little time in 2008, was a main component of the
championship South Dragons team who folded in 2009 and was this blog writer’s
favourite team when they existed and now played for the Gold Coast Blaze. Luckily for the remaining teams in the league
Worthington has been linked to teams in Europe, sparing any other club of
doom. Adam Gibson hasn’t been much
better as he also played on that South Dragons team.
Not is all lost for the players though as many are looking elsewhere. As stated before Mark Worthington has been
linked to Europe, import Will Hudson has signed with New Zealand while Adam
Gibson, Anthony Petrie and Chris Goulding have been courted by numerous teams
with Adelaide the top candidate for Gibson.
Hopefully this episode has galvanized the rest of the clubs in
the league and given a massive life lesson to future teams. If the Eastern Melbourne and Brisbane teams
can gain a big time financial backer and more importantly have a sound
financial model this league can get back to the greatness of having ten teams
again. I guess for the short term eight
is enough.
*http://www.hoops.com.au/forum/28015-nbl-average-attendances-2011-12-regular-season/
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